Steam Summer Sale loot + NBI 2016 in review

Game lootz!

I’d been waiting for the Steam Summer Sale for months so I could get some of the games on my wishlist on sale. And, as it turns out, some games that were not on my wishlist as well. The Steam queue actually turned up a few gems. So here’s the list:

Dying Light: The Following DLC – I’ve been wanting this DLC forever. More zombie parkour, with vehicles this time!

Firewatch – Looks like it has a fantastic story.

STASIS – A horror game but one with an isometric view. I think I can handle that.

Minecraft: Story Mode Adventure Pass – Yes, Minecraft: Story Mode is the only Telltale game I’ve ever played. Liked it quite a bit so picking up the extra episodes.

The Walking Dead: Michonne – I’ve always liked Michonne so I figure I’d give another Telltale game a try.

Oxenfree – Another horror game but it’s side-scrolling and the story looks really good.

Shadwen – Stealth game with a badass female protagonist, yessssssssssssss.

Planetbase – Semi-realistic space colony management. Kind of like Banished in space from all accounts.

There’s not any games here I was dying to get (those get bought outside of sales) but I’m still excited to play all of them. There were quite a few games in my Steam queues that had interesting concepts but I wasn’t really pumped about the prospect of playing them. Maybe if I had unlimited time, I’d give them a go, but I don’t so I promised myself that I’d only buy games that I got excited about. Oh, and can I say how much I love the ability to customize my queue? Now I never have to see another sports/racing/rogue-like/JRPG/MOBA game every again.

#NBI2016

NBI this year was pretty much a non-starter for me for a variety of reasons.

Couldn’t write as much or as often as I could last year. In fact I only wrote two posts in all of June.

Last year I was a newbie but this year I’m a “veteran”. It feels like I should have been dispensing advice but I honestly couldn’t think of anything that someone else hadn’t already said.

The late start and the change in format didn’t mesh well with me. I think on May 31, I was asking on Discord what the plans were for NBI, since everyone said it was happening but I couldn’t find any details on what was actually going to happen. And while I’ve heard others say that they loved using Discord for most of the discussion…it just wasn’t my thing. Discord feels too much like Twitter where there’s a million conversations happening and my brain seizes up trying to keep track of them. I’m someone who wants clear and concise information that I can easily reference whenever I want. Discord doesn’t really provide that. There’s the NBI site but that wasn’t up for the first few days of June and then was down for another few. So by the second week of June, I gave up on checking the site and Discord, and pretty much forgot about the whole event.

I feel bad that it didn’t work out like I was hoping but there’s always next year to look forward to. And hey, we got some new bloggers in the community and that’s always awesome. Here they are:

While he wasn’t part of NBI, MMOBro recently contact me about his blog which launched at the beginning of the year, so I think he counts as a newbie as well. All of these folks have been added to the bottom of the page in my blogroll (which I take requests for. Don’t be shy!)

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